«You realize that it's time you were on your way,» Blade finished for him.

Goron laughed. «Yes, I suppose so. I suppose I should not even have come this far, but I could not do otherwise. Not after that many-times damned order from Englor.»

Blade said nothing, for there was nothing to say about that order that he hadn't already said several times. He would cheerfully strangle whoever gave it with his bare hands, but that would have to wait until he was back in Englor.

Blade scrambled up the ladder, feeling it creak under his weight, and climbed onto the wing. The dull gray aluminum was slick underfoot, and he moved carefully as he made his way toward the fuselage.

Blade reached the fuselage and looked forward. Josip was already in the cockpit, head bent over the controls. The whirr of a starter floated up to Blade's ears, and the truck with Piedar Goron at the wheel jerked into motion.

Blade raised one hand in a silent salute to the underground leader. He would have given a good part of his own chances at a safe return to Englor to get Goron safely out of here.

It happened so fast that if Blade's own intuition hadn't already made him partly alert, even his own swift and skilled reactions might not have been enough. A sudden crack overhead, like the blast of a shotgun, and the fog and the wet concrete and the aluminum of the plane seemed to glow as a flare burst high above the runway. Even in the fog it blazed so fiercely that for a moment Blade did not see the headlights racing toward him down the runway. He could only hear the swelling roar of engines, but that was enough to finish alerting him. By the time he could see clearly again, he knew where to look for the enemy.

There were three vehicles racing toward him. In the lead was a small jeep with three men in civilian clothes in it. Behind the jeep was a large canvas-topped truck. In the rear was an armored car, the commander standing up in the turret and the driver visible in the front hatch.

Blade's arm curved and his hand closed on one of the grenades. In a single flowing motion he jerked the pin, swung his arm far back, and snapped it forward. The grenade arched through the fog. As the flare died it struck the runway only a few feet ahead of the jeep. At the exact moment the jeep passed above it, the grenade exploded.

The blast lifted the jeep completely clear of the ground and in the same moment ignited the gas tank in a searing flash of yellow white flame. The sound of screaming men and crumpling metal as the jeep fell back to the ground were lost in the roar of the flames.

With a desperate twist of the wheel, the driver of the truck avoided ramming the flaming wreckage of the jeep. As the truck swerved, one tire must have passed over some sharp fragment of metal. There was another shotgun sound as the tire blew and a squeal of rubber as the truck went into a wild skid. It swung left, the driver fighting desperately for control, as the men in the back started leaping for safety. Three came out, two going down and not rising, a third staggering to his feet with his rifle still in his hands. Blade started to pull the pin from another grenade, then suddenly realized where the truck was going to end up. Instead, he leaped down from the plane's fuselage onto the wing, no longer worrying about slipping on the wet metal.

He was still fighting for balance on the wing when the skidding truck crashed into the plane. The truck tore off the nose landing gear and the nose smashed down onto the truck's cab. Blade lost his footing and nearly skidded right off the trailing edge of the wing. For a moment he had the feeling that the plane was going to flip right over like a playing card and land with him underneath.

Blade flung himself on his belly toward the leading edge of the wing, raising his machine pistol as he did. This was the kind of close fighting where it was deadly. A single burst emptied the magazine and cut down four Russland soldiers as they struggled out of the truck.

Blade threw his second grenade, aiming for a tear in the canvas top of the truck. His throw was good. Fragments of metal, canvas, human bodies, and weapons showered down all around. The truck's gas tank spewed flame. Blade took advantage of the moment's confusion to swim himself over the edge of the wing. He hung by his hands for a moment, then dropped to the concrete.

As he put a new magazine in the machine pistol, the cockpit canopy opened and Josip scrambled out onto the fuselage. His face was set and grim, and he carried a pistol in his right hand. At that moment Blade saw that the armored car was stopped out on the runway and the machine gun in the turret was swinging toward the plane. Josip straightened up, Blade yelled a warning, and the machine gun gave a quick, angry rattle. Josip's uniform turned dark from chest down to groin and his face set even harder. He reeled, fired two shots from his pistol, and toppled off the plane.

As Josip struck the concrete, Rilla ran out from where she'd been waiting under the plane. Blade shouted to her, «Get down!» and practically dragged her to the concrete with him. He shifted the machine pistol to a two-handed grip and sighted in on the armored car's commander in his turret.

Then the turret began to swing again and Blade saw something move in toward the armored car from the edge of the parking area. It was Piedar Goron in his truck, turning his back on the safety he might have found in the forest to come back and try to salvage a mission gone spectacularly wrong. The machine gun went off, and at the same time Goron fired out his window. He had a poor angle and a moving platform, but his submachine gun didn't need precise aiming. A long burst filled the air around the armored car with bullets. The commander crumpled in his hatch and the turret stopped turning as his body jammed it. Goron's truck screeched to a stop, and Blade leaped to his feet. He dashed out into the open, avoiding bodies and nearly slipping on concrete now slippery with blood and leaking fuel from the plane. He ran up to the driver's hatch of the armored car and put a burst from his machine pistol into the chest of the man inside.

As Blade reached in to pull the driver out of the car, Goron came stumbling up. He limped, one arm dangled uselessly, there was blood in the corner of his mouth and a long ugly bullet graze along one cheek. He was obviously hurt, probably badly.

Rilla ran out to join them as Blade pulled the dead commander out of the turret. The paleness of her face was now broken by several large smudges of grease or soot, and her hands shook slightly. But she was enough in control of herself to help Goron into the car. Blade finished with the commander, took the man's pistol and gloves, and climbed into the car. He gave a desperate mental prayer for it to start and nearly shouted out loud in relief and delight as the engine rumbled into life. Then he swung the car around to pass close to the plane.

Goron bit back a gasp of pain and stared at Blade. «Why-this?»

«Confuse our trail a bit,» said Blade. Without stopping he took one hand off the wheel to pick up his last grenade. He pulled the pin with his teeth, then heaved the grenade out the window and up onto the wing of the plane. As it exploded, he slammed one size twelve shoe down on the gas pedal. The armored car swerved wildly, started to skid, straightened out, and roared away down the runway as the patrol bomber erupted in flames behind it.

Blade shifted gears and shouted to Rilla, «Keep a lookout behind!» He shifted gears again, and the hammering roar of the diesel under the hood grew louder. In the rearview mirror Blade could see the flames mounting higher and higher and spreading farther and farther as burning fuel flowed out across the runway. The Russlanders would undoubtedly want to come after them, but they'd also be worried about putting out the flames before they spread to other planes, reopening the runway, and-